


Will fucks his hair up at 1:43AM

by portbleck



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Episode: s02e07 Yakimono, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, M/M, Neurodivergent Will Graham, Trans Will Graham, kinda background hannigram, not relevant really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 04:04:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16339457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portbleck/pseuds/portbleck
Summary: Projection Time!!Once Will gets out of the Baltimore Institute he has a bit of a meltdown and tries to regain a little bit of control in a destructive sort of way. He's trying, but the expectations of his peers and the lingering memories of Hannibal's manipulations cloud his every thought.





	Will fucks his hair up at 1:43AM

**Author's Note:**

> anxiety postin' so ill clean up the grammar and stuff at a later date, just need validation rn.
> 
> also the reason hannibal thinks will is 'feisty' is because thats actually what the wiki for yakimono calls him. like he threatens hannibal with a gun and hes like 'damn he feisty'?? just thought that was funny.

Will distantly heard the patter of his dogs’ feet around him as he opened the door.

He extended a hand down vacantly, feeling their excited snuffs against him as they crowd him, before pacing patiently whilst he slips down to remove his shoes and socks. Slowly making his way over to the couch, he dropped the empty gun against the cushion to raise his pale fingers up against his temples, against his thick curls. They are rough as they tug against his roots, but he’s annoyed by how his skin has lightened from all his time under Chilton’s care, squirreled away from the world. 

Will has to admit, all this space, all these warm furry bodies around him, all these objects of familiarity are kinda freaking him out. It’s overwhelming after all that time inside. Cold bricks brushing against his back and the glow of panelled lights have become woven into his experience of night. Sitting in darkness, hearing the roar of leaves in the wind as the heat and noise of his dogs fills the air is such a luxury. It's making him sick, like rich chocolate cake on a starved man’s palate.

He tugged again at his hair, this time harder. He never let it get this long on the outside.

It was a line of defence to be swept around his eyes and hidden behind. Pulling on and playing with his hair helped him think and avoid. And yet, the loose strands that fell at the base of his skull still licked at his insecurities, leaving Hannibal’s fingertips ghosting at his nape. Glancing past his dogs, who seem to have calmed down now, Will laid eyes on the gun and smiled bitterly.

Hannibal’s flinching and straining at the end of that gun had somewhat salved his own fragmented state of mind, if only he could have seen through Matthew Brown’s eyes as he strung Hannibal up. No one at the Bureau had told him how it happened, but he’d seen into Matthew’s eyes. The blueprints for the betrayer’s punishment began etching across Matthew’s face as soon as Will had named his victim.

'His _victim_ ’. Will snorted derisively. 

Will had wanted the revenge to feel righteous, not sadistic. Now upon seeing the way Hannibal had reacted to the looming threat of an abrupt, utilitarian death, Will wasn’t so sure he could tread the moral high ground anymore.

Absentmindedly, he realised he had threaded his fingers through the hair on his nape, tugging until coils of glossy hair had wrapped themselves around his fingers. He let out a staggered breath, feeling Hannibal’s phantom hands around his jaw and in his hair, dredging up unconscious memories of intimate touches. Personal or professional, the Doctor’s hands on his fevered brow and through his hair made his skin crawl. Did he flinch under the touch like Hannibal had at the hollow clicking of the chamber?

Will tore himself off the couch and wrenched himself out of his shirt.

The dictatorial way he'd been robbed of his autonomy had burned, but Chilton liked his monsters pliable. He knew the length of hair softened his features, drowning in swathes of cherubic chestnut. He wondered if Chilton considered his features when denying him the opportunity to groom. It’s not like he would have enjoyed being strapped down and muzzled whilst some stranger ran their hands through his hair and he sat there, withstanding the continuous assault against his privacy.

On the outside, he had a safe barber. One that was conscious of his gender and touch sensitivity, and was happy to stick to a recurring schedule so Will didn’t have to plan things out himself. That way he wasn’t at risk of his carelessness bleeding into dysphoria after too long without a cut.

That schedule was broken by the BSHCI, yet another thing ripped from his control.

Rummaging around the kitchen draws, Will searched for the heavy stainless-steel scissors he usually kept there. He couldn't find them. Probably moved in a careless clean up when his house was upturned for evidence. He couldn’t blame them, they never thought he’d come back here.

He knew he’d be seeing everyone this week. Zeller and Price would notice but probably wouldn’t think anything of it. Hannibal had already seen him and was likely dissecting every shake of his greasy, nervous visage with a coy smile. Jack and Alana wouldn’t care, but irrationally, they stood as judicious gatekeepers of masculinity and femininity in his mind.

They couldn’t see him like this tomorrow. They had already tracked his descent from a friend, to a murderer, to a broken parody of the man they once knew. If they saw him like this, he feared this would unravel their view of his own masculinity, seeing nothing but a spiteful victim lying vulnerable behind long, curly hair.

Will shut one of the cabinets he’d been looking in with a bang, reopening the cutlery draw and finding a pair of blunt, plastic-handled scissors. They’d have to do. He gripped the hair at his nape and positioned the scissors behind him, cutting along in an approximation of a straight line.

He felt thick clumps of hair trail down his back, gliding like feathers to the floor. Searching hands then grasped at the thin wisps remaining, until they were messily chased behind his hairline. Each snip fanned an unstable ember of control buzzing in his chest.

For some reason, he knew Hannibal wouldn’t interrogate his gender.

Even so, Will sucked a sharp breath between his teeth at the thought of him. His hair would not be a tool for others to manipulate him with. Snipping aimlessly, taking uneven chunks out of the top of his hair, he was guided by a wonky stare in the mirror.

It was messy, trimming the fat away until flavourful cuts of meat were lost with it, but the motions still intoxicated him.

Throwing his scissors down on the counter, Will saw the dissatisfying result of his trim and grimaced.

Pacing out of the room, ignoring the clumps and strands that stuck between his toes, he rummaged further into his storage closet. It sat cradled in a tangled mess of electronics. Frantic hands unearthed the cables as he pulled the weighty clippers into his hands, turning and walking back to the kitchen.

Humming to life as soon as they are plugged in, Will’s eyes pick out two stands of tawny dog hair with a sigh. He remembers reluctantly turning his expensive, rarely used clippers on Winston. His shaggy coat was knotty with mud when he came back from the angel-maker investigation. Even after thorough washing, he’d had to cut and shave along his hindlegs. It was a little gross to use them again on himself, but he still smiled at the memory and contorted his body to line the teeth of the clippers with the back of his scalp.

Will closed his eyes and enjoyed the shaky but consistent pressure, guiding it against the contours of his skull. 

Everything else drifted away, the whirring drowned all his anxieties and flushed them out. It was mechanistic and all consuming. He only opened his eyes occasionally to realign the teeth with his hairline and to watch the hair spiral around him as he worked. Calmer now, he opened his eyes to move to the front of his head.

Approaching the mirror closer, he looked into his eyes. For once, no one else stared back. Just a pair of eyes, determined and collected in their gaze. Breathing one long breath through his nose, he started on the left, slowly stripping away his hair whilst moving right. The front would be a lot neater than the back, especially as he went in at his temples with a new sense of care, preserving the line as it gathered above his ear.

This was not the same Will Graham. He switched off the buzzers and observed the Will Graham in the mirror.

He looked older, not as small as he would have thought. Running a hand against the grain of his shaved scalp felt satisfying.

He was by no means looking forward to Jack’s guilty scrutinising, or Alana’s coddling, but this was a start. One line of defence was scrapped to maintain a feeling of control over his presentation. The fringe would be missed, but this was something that had just built up. Anxiety clawing violently under his skin had taken over and this was the form it had ripped through him with.

As cathartic as it was, it was also a practical solution to the length of his hair now that his barber was scared of him.

Looking down at the mounds of his hair, he realised it was not so practical that it wouldn’t involve a speedy clean up. He sharply exhaled in worry and glanced at Buster’s quick exit from the room.

“Buster- buddy! Hey! What’s that in your mouth? Buster!” 

If he worked quick he wouldn’t have to clear up wet clumps of hair spat out by anyone else.

* * *

“It’s not a good idea to consult on the same case, Hannibal. Just- please don’t be as selfless as usual, ok?”

Hannibal pauses, affecting as though he were considering Alana’s words with a diplomatic, though wounded demeanour. 

“Alana, I appreciate your concern. Truly.” He breathes, touching her elbow consolingly and stroking over it with his thumb, before letting go and continuing. 

“However, the experiences that led him to lash out at me can only worsen in isolation. He needs friends.”

“But that doesn’t have to be you, Hannibal. He tried to kill you. For all we know, he still thinks you’re the Chesapeake Ripper!”

“And who better to coax him out of that belief than his psychiatrist? Alana,” he says, leveraging her close to him for comfort, “Trust me. I believe in Will’s ability to grow from this.”

Alana looks close to throwing her hands up and shouting some sense into him like she tried when Abigail was high. Instead she shrugs her shoulders and tilts her head with concern. “Well I’m glad one of us does.” She rumbles softly, moving herself to a professional proximity and looking out of the large glass office walls, scanning for a familiar figure. “At least let me talk to him first?”

A small smile of surrender graces Hannibal’s lips. “Of course.”

She nods, then draws herself up to leave the room just as Will rounds the corner.

Jolted, Hannibal cranes his neck subtly to drink in the sight of Will and his new hair.

After Will left his house in such a state last night, Hannibal had poured himself a large glass of wine to mull over the feisty younger man. Naturally, the abruptness of it shook him, leaving him to consider the dissatisfaction of a sudden death. However, this was superseded by his fervour at Will’s turn. Everything had come together nicely; the stakes of their game had risen now his opponent was no longer hobbled by disease and institutionalisation. The empty click of the gun could still wrack his body if he gave the motion enough thought. Will’s desperation was now conjoined with his power, unlike the vulnerable desperation of his encephalitis.

In this state of mind, he observed Will’s head.

He saw with new clarity the tick of his strong jaw, now matched by a strain above his temple; the way his head moved as he talked; the broad planes of his that face stood out now their curtains had been stripped away; the elegant curve of his cranium as he tilted his head down to meet Alana Bloom’s frustrated gaze. Will was laid out in front of him afresh, another layer of his defences peeled away for Hannibal’s delight.

Hannibal thought about how he’d support that curve as he fucked Will’s throat. How those hungry eyes would stare up at him, with no fringe to hide behind as that new power pinned him in place.

Swallowing thickly, Hannibal concluded that this was not the best place to be planning such things. He had not the faintest idea how he’d get through a briefing with this new Will Graham sitting next to him.

With a careless flick of his penetrating stare, Will ensnared Hannibal through the glass.

This would not be an easy day.


End file.
